GigaChad is the ultimate Chad—the hypermasculine ideal, the alpha, the most confident meme of a man you’ll find on the internet.
What is a GigaChad?
The GigaChad meme takes the Chad moniker—that of a big dumb confident man—and ramps it up by a billion (giga).
Everybody knows that if you post a GigaChad picture, your opinion is correct. No combination of facts, logic, or rhetoric can stand up in the face of you posting that fateful, supremely masculine, yoked, black-and-white image of the most masculine man in the world.
GigaChad meme history:
The image that became known as GigaChad is the fruit of an art project called sleekntears, created by the artist Krista Sudmalis.
In that series, Adonis-like male and female bodies are enhanced to mythological proportions in black-and-white photos under soft, diffuse, shadow-heavy lighting.
Sudmalis was taking GigaChad-like photos and posting them on the art project’s Facebook page as early as October 2016.
At the time, the person wasn’t known as GigaChad. The name actually comes from a 4chan post made in October 2017, according to KnowYourMeme.
“Years of Bogdanoff research into genetic augmentation has finally yielded fruit,” reads the post, referencing the Bogdanoff twins, a pair of French celebrity brothers who became memes themselves for their extreme, plastic surgery-altered features. “Behold, the Gigachad. The perfect human specimen destined to lead us against the reptilians. We are all witness.”
Who is GigaChad?
The Instagram account berlin.1969 presents itself to be the GigaChad himself, a man named Ernest Khalimov.
But while Khalimov has become the public, chiseled face of GigaChad, the real story is more complicated than that.
In fact, GigaChad may not even be real at all.
Is GigaChad a real person?
Despite the berlin.1969 Instagram account acknowledging the meme and becoming the public face of it, including by posting images in collaboration with sleekntears, it’s unlikely that he is a real person.
Evidence for that idea (aside from his cartoonish, bicycle-pumped muscles) includes the fact that there are no behind-the-scenes photos of GigaChad’s model like there are for the other models in Sudmalis’ series, as pointed out in an article by Dude Products.
Artur Farad, a fitness model, is a likely candidate for being the real inspiration. A look on his Instagram account shows he does bear a real resemblance to the impossibly square-jawed model. Farad has played into the idea himself by captioning some of the photos #gigachad.
Farad has also posted images of himself with the Sleek’n’Tears brand stamp on his chest, suggesting either at least a resemblance or a direct inspiration for GigaChad.
Ernest Khalimov’s opinion on the memes
Despite the unlikelihood of Khalimov being a real person, the ruse has been maintained over the years. After the GigaChad picture initially went viral, berlin.1969 responded to the attention with a friendly post thanking his fans for the attention.
“Must admit I’m shocked that there are so many of you and that you are not negative … I have nothing to say to you, probably because I look much more interesting from your words,” he wrote. “It’s very flattering and overshadows my commonness. Thanks for the kind words. Thank you for the positive energy. don’t doubt guys I mentally return it to you. Take your time and keep calm. Take care of yourself and your loved ones … Yours faithfully. Average person.”
“gigachad is real, and humble and he seems like a pretty nice guy. he’s an actual Chad,” wrote one redditor in response.
Average Fan vs. Average Enjoyer
Even though the GigaChad meme itself is a spin-off of the Chad memes, other memes have spun off from it, as well.
Riffing on the idea that posting an image of GigaChad automatically makes everything you say correct, a smiling devil-may-care version of the meme was integrated into the popular Average Fan vs. Average Enjoyer meme format starting in 2021, according to KnowYourMeme.
One viral video got over a half-million views using the template to sarcastically contrast evidence-deploying nerds to gut-trusting Chads.
Another variation of the meme has GigaChad reacting to country names like Georgia, Turkey, or Hungary by acting like they aren’t the names of countries but are other places, nouns, or adjectives. Think it’s stupid? GigaChad doesn’t, and you’re a beta if you do.
Who is the female GigaChad?
Another spin-off of the GigaChad meme is compromised of similar black and white photos of Sudmalis herself, shared to her Instagram in 2020 and co-opted by the internet to take on the moniker “female GigaChad” the following year.
Do people find GigaChad attractive?
Despite GigaChad being held up as a masculine ideal, this photoshopped take on an allegedly highly attractive specimen actually doesn’t seem to be all that appealing to women at all.
According to a survey of both men and women done by DatePsychology.com, women ultimately rated the GigaChad images as “below average” looking. In fact, men rated him notably higher—a 4.88 average on a 7.0 scale, compared to women’s 3.58.
What’s up with GigaChad memes today?
GigaChad memes have come to take on a different meaning to different people. Some still see him as the ultimate alpha who can never be wrong. Others see him as a more laid back guy who expresses a viewpoint where it’s less important to get things exactly right, and more important to be confident and take it easy. And still others see the meme as something a little more tragic.
And to some, being a real GigaChad just means being positive and trusting in yourself. And maybe also building and maintaining hypertrophic musculature characterized by prominent deltoids, pectorals, and biceps, as well as ample striation and vascularity maintained by a hyper-low subcutaneous fat percentage, and also working hard to build defined serratus anterior muscles, and maybe also bulking and cutting heavily after engaging in multiple anabolic cycles.
Do all this, and then you, too, can be GigaChad.
Editor’s note: This article is regularly updated for relevance.
Watch more about GigaChad in our original YouTube series Meme History below:
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